Adventure Twelve: Pilot of the Airwaves
Vania starts teleporting groups off the island, starting with the Clavers. Earl starts tending the wounded. Jack spreads the news that we’re arranging escape from the island for anyone who wants it and works to deescalate tensions between groups to prevent further conflict. Alder meets a human slave named Bruce Clautier, who says the way to get a message to the Alley Cat is to track down a collared ghoul who travels with the human scientists. P0P1 and Ruth work on deactivating collars among the remaining slave population. *Alder approaches the barricaded human scientists and negotiates with Captain Mannick to release the half-dozen slaves inside. The rumored ghoul slave is Dr. Strahd. Though wearing a slave collar, he claims to be working with the Atomac with the goal of working his way up their ranks and take them down from the outside. His current project is to develop a weather-resistant biomed gel for use in cyborgs that will allow them to survive the mountain crossing and attack Freehaven. He states that he wants Freehaven to ultimately win, but he wants to make use of the Atomac’s superior technology for his research. *Strahd says that he has implanted explosives in the half-dozen human slaves, which will explode if the collars are removed. Alder brings the others to help remove the explosives, but Strahd reveals that it was a lie to bring them there. He has implanted explosives in a Claver, whom he detonates. *Mannick rages at Strahd’s betrayal and announces a reward for whoever kills him. Trained Clavers come out of the building to surround the party. *Mannick releases a cyborg cougar and orders her to attack Strahd, but she turns on Mannick. Strahd introduces her as the Alley Cat. *Strahd’s nanotech aura is significantly weaker than it used to be, and the magic he uses is similar in nature to Optat’s abilities. His new abilities are fueled by red mercury, though he does not reveal this. *After Mannick and the Clavers are eliminated, Strahd identifies which of the human scientists are Atomac sympathizers and which are motivated only by the research and could be convinced to support Freehaven. The sympathizers are killed. *Bruce offers for the freed slaves to join him at one of the “Spokes” of “The Hub,” the base of the Hubbology cult. They will be given food and shelter with the requirement that they listen to the Hubbologist priests. Most choose to accept. The remainder ask to join us on the Kalakala. Among them are many Moreaus and some humans who have previously encountered Hubbologists and do not wish to go back. *Strahd sees Jack accessing his memory and identifies him as Subject 8421. He reveals that he used to be a physical chemist working for The Collective and experimented upon Jack roughly 100 years ago/roughly 120 years after the bombs fell. Strahd infected Jack with a virus that regenerated his cells to his pre-ghoul state, and he was the only test subject who survived. However, he remained catatonic, so Strahd abandoned him, and he was eventually captured by Poseidon. Jack is accessing The Collective for his knowledge, but it seems they cannot reach him. *Strahd’s research into human and canid genomes may have been a precursor to the Raider virus. He also developed the Alley Cat. *Strahd’s experiment on Earl and Alder also severed his own connection to nanotech, and he wants to use Jack to further his research on reviving his nanotech. Access to Jack is worth more to him than the resources of the Atomac. *Optat meets the Alley Cat and thanks her for her role in developing the resistance. The Alley Cat decides that with her work done here, she feels a calling elsewhere, and Optat chooses to follow her. *To destroy the teleportation cannon on our way out, former slaves deposit their collars at the base of the Space Needle, for P0P1 to remote detonate. *The Kalakala hydroplanes toward the island at high speed and warns us that the Atomac’s military forces are fast approaching by water and air. We rush the final evacuation to the Spoke by using P0P1 and Ruth to transport the remaining people with magnets and air cushion. We let the Kalakala continue past us while the teleportation cannon recharges, planning to use it one last time to teleport ourselves ahead of the Kalakala and meet them beyond the island. *In the teleportation, time slows down, and we see the giant face of Director Almara. Trapped in the extradimensional space for an indeterminate amount of time, she has developed control over energy in that realm and activates the transmitter with the intent of broadcasting the signal to detonate the slave collars across the Wasteland. Jack uses countersong and drowns out her radio transmission with his own message to the population, but the effort drains his body and burns out his nanotech until his formerly restored sentience degenerates. *P0P1 remote detonates the slave collars, and the Space Needle topples as we land in the water ahead of the Kalakala. The Jack that exits the teleportation has lost all his former regeneration, and all that remains is a feral ghoul.